Corpus Christi and Padre Island: Part 1

This weekend we had a 4 day so my roommate and I took off on Friday around noon for Corpus Christi!  We got there mid afternoon and started looking for a place to stay and things to do.  The first place we checked was a Holiday Inn on the coast and were told that a basic 2 queen bed room was going to be $189/night!  We decided that wasn't going to work so well so we started calling every hotel we could find until we got one for $70/night...much more reasonable.  We got checked into our hotel room, got stuff unpacked and then started looking for things to do in our Texas visitors guide.  We discovered a place called Horses on the Beach that was located on Padre Island so we called and got reservations for an hour and a half long horseback ride on the beach at sunset. 

That's me on my horse, Tatonka.  It was a really fun ride, it's too bad the sun sets over the dunes instead of the ocean since we were on the east side of Texas, but still really fun. 

(This is my roommate, Kinsey and her horse, Tortuga)

After our sunset ride we headed back to the hotel.  Saturday morning we got up and headed to the coast to tour the USS Lexington (Lady Lex), a WWII Aircraft Carrier, also nicknamed "the Blue Ghost" that was retired in 1991 and given a permanent home in the Corpus Christi Bay.  The ship is a 910ft, 16 deck, 33,000 ton ship.  It was really awesome to tour!  We started out below deck and went through most of the main areas of the ship including the galley, sailor's quarters, dental clinic, Sick Bay, engine room, chapel, barber, female berthing quarters (this is the first ship that females were allowed on), and post office.  Then we headed up to the Flight Deck where they had about a dozen different planes from the WWII era parked.  We walked around those and got to sit on some Anti-Aircraft Guns, then went ventured up into the Captain's Cabin, Navigation Bridge, and Pilothouse.  We were also able to check out Officer's quarters as well as a Pearl Harbor Exhibit.  The Officer's quarters weren't much different than the sailor's quarters, a little more storage space though. 

 

(Just about to board the ship)

(The Rising Sun with the black border is the exact location where on 5 November 1944 a Japanese Kamikaze plane, Code Name Zeke, crashed into USS Lexington, killing 50 of her crew and injuring 132)

 (I decided to see just exactly how much room a female sailor had for sleeping quarters, in the Female Berth, for males to enter, they required a female escort and were required to shout "MAN ABOARD!")

(This is the amount of space each sailor got, one tall locker for uniforms and a few smaller ones for the rest of their gear)

(Waiting for my lunch in the galley, the picture below is the menu served on Christmas in 1956)

 (Dental clinic - there were about 4 exam rooms, a lab for making false teeth, and an x-ray room)

( I thought this was funny)

(Post Office)

Part of Sick Bay

(Loved the wall of bed pans and urinals)

 (The Chapel) 

 (Looking out from the Flight Deck...all the little white dots in the water are Jellyfish!)

 (Some of the planes on the Flight Deck)

(US Army Cobra Helicoptor)

(Sitting behind an Anti-Air Craft Gun)

(Sitting on the Navigation Bridge)

The adventure will continue with the Texas State Aquarium, para sailing, and swimming in the Gulf of Mexico in Part 2...